How one man used a simple strategy from Toyota to fix a problem he faced every day

Sometimes, in order to solve a tricky problem, you've got to dig
a little deeper than the surface.

You can address the outward symptoms, but chances are the core
issue won't disappear forever.

Fortunately, peeling back the layers of the
problem at hand doesn't necessarily require years of
psychotherapy. In fact, you can jumpstart the process of
problem-solving by asking a simple question:
"Why?"

That's according to Charles Duhigg, a New York
Times journalist and the author of the new book "Smarter
Faster Better." Duhigg recently
wrote an article in The New York Times about how he used this
strategy to finally stop skipping dinner with his family.

Duhigg says he borrowed the "Five Whys" strategy from the car
manufacturer Toyota, which
employs the same system throughout the organization. The
process is incredibly straightforward: Ask "why" five times and
you'll find the core issue that needs a resolution.

For Duhigg, that meant first asking why he and
his wife weren't making it home in time for dinner with their
kids: They consistently stayed late at work.

Why? Because they had to take care of tasks they
had put off during the day.

Why? Because they showed up to work late and
didn't have a chance to deal with those tasks in the
morning.

Why? Because the kids took a long time getting
ready in the morning.

Suddenly, a solution appeared: Have the kids lay
out their outfits the night before and get dressed first thing in
the morning. That way, Duhigg and his wife wouldn't be late for
work and set off a negative cycle of staying at the office past
dinnertime.

The key to solving the problem was thinking past
the superficial manifestation — and learning that the issue was
simpler than it seemed.

Presumably, the same strategy might apply to any
problem, from oversleeping to overeating to wasting time on
Facebook at work. When you start asking why certain
troublesome behaviors exist, you get closer to finding a
straightforward, effective solution.

As Duhigg writes, productivity "means different
things to different people, but at its core, it's about thinking
a little more deeply about the choices we make every day."